The present invention relates to a connector, and more particularly to a connector that includes spacers to prevent short circuit during welding of terminals on the connector to cores of a flat cable and provides increased contact areas between the welded terminals and cores of the flat cable to ensure stable signal transmission at high speed without causing signal fluctuation.
With the increasing development of computer-related technologies, the currently available computers all have a central processing unit (CPU) with almost incredibly powerful digital operation function. Under this condition, all other peripherals, including driving and driven components thereof, must be structured to match with the high processing speed of the CPU. A flat cable, which is located between the CPU and the driving and driven peripherals to transmit signals, therefore plays a very important role in the signal transmission, and connectors provided at two ends of the flat cable have direct influence on the successful signal transmission.
FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a conventional connector 1 for use with a flat cable 2. The connector 1 mainly includes an electrically insulated base 11 and an electrically insulated cover 12 structured to firmly hold the flat cable 2 to the base 11. The base 11 is provided at a top with several rows of staggered piercing terminals 13. Each of the piercing terminals 13 includes piercing prongs 131 formed at a top thereof. When the flat cable 2 is firmly held between the base 11 and the cover 12, the piercing prongs 131 pierce through a skin 21 of the flat cable 2, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, to electrically connect cores 22 of the flat cable 2 to the terminals 13. It is noted that the piercing prongs 131 are in point contact or line contact with the cores 22 to transmit signals. Since the flat cable 2 has very closely arranged cores 22, it is possible the prongs 131 do not accurately pierce the flat cable 2 at the skin 21 or the prongs 131 pierce through the cores 22 to break the same, resulting in poor signal transmission. Moreover, the point contact or line contact between the prongs 131 of the piercing terminals 13 and the cores 22 of the flat cable 2 is too feeble to ensure good signal transmission via the flat cable 2 and the connectors 1 provided at two ends of the flat cable 2. Lowered transmission efficiency and unstable signals might occur.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved connector that includes spacers to prevent short circuit during welding of terminals on the connector to cores of a flat cable and provides increased contact areas between the welded terminals and cores of the flat cable to ensure stable signal transmission at high speed without causing signal fluctuation.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a connector that is able to prevent short circuit during connection of terminals on the connector to cores of a flat cable.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a connector that provides increased contact areas between terminals on the connector and cores of the flat cable to ensure stable signal transmission at high speed without causing signal fluctuation.
To achieve the above and other objects, the connector of the present invention mainly includes an electrically insulated base having a plurality of conductive terminals in the shape of an inverted letter xe2x80x9cLxe2x80x9d inserted onto a top thereof, and an electrically insulated cover being structured to firmly hold a flat cable to the insulated base. The insulated base is provided at the top with a row of spacers to form a plurality of parallelly spaced slots, into which horizontal contact parts of the conductive terminals are separately seated to partially expose from the top of the insulated base. The insulated base is also provided at two longitudinal sides of the row of spacers with two rows of staggered terminal holes corresponding to the spaced slots. The conductive terminals are sequentially seated in the spaced slots with vertical insertion parts thereof alternately inserted into the two rows of terminal holes. And, the flat cable is stripped at a predetermined section to expose a length of naked cores that are separately located in the spaced slots above the conductive terminals and are welded to the latter to provide increased contact areas between them. The increased contact areas between the terminals and the naked cores ensure stable signal transmission via the flat cable at high speed without causing signal fluctuation, and the spacers prevent the occurrence of short circuit during welding of the terminals to the naked cores of the flat cable.